Big first collection

04-13-2011, 02:15 PM

Hello !
Excuse me if I make mistakes, I am french and I never talk or write in english in my everyday life. I hope I'll be clear enough

I have discovered GTD on Internet since 2 or 3 years and have tried to use some concepts directly. Then I decided to buy two translated books of David Allen and to start following the whole process after reading them. But I find it difficult.

My problem is about the first collection : if I understand I have to "scann" all my stuff, but how should I consider archives like my student notes ? I intend to turn them into references and keep some sheets as souvenir, but today I have many meters long of paper, so it's going to be a long job to look at the details.

I imagine that a GTD's collection about it could be :
- write one note for the big project of my student notes (read, keep/summarize/throw away, etc.)
- write some brainstorm notes for any idea I have today about it (in order to clear my mind)
- rapidly look at those student papers in order to catch other ideas, but leave papers where they are. Only collected notes will get in GTD process for the moment.
Then I will consider other papers, clutter, home renovation works, dreams... for an exhaustive collection.

I think you got it right. The key is to pay attention to whatever has your attention and capture it first of all. I personally wouldn't even bother scanning student lectures at all because there is probably nothing actionable there

Comment

May, I agree with you, old student notes are not a priority because there's nothing special to do about them. But I also think that it can be an important part of GTD system, as references or souvenirs, when moved in a fresh and trusty classification. This idea sounds right for me while reading GTD's instruction, but it is hard to define the right time for this job and you helped me a lot !

delittlehales, that is sweet, thank you ! I do my best (with google precious help I confess), but I wish to train again because I've forgotten so much about english and german speaking... it's one of my next GTD's entries

Suelin23, your advice strengthen my decision : I will keep the existant classification until I decide to start the first action of "student's backlog" project, and handle only GTD's notes at first.